Almost People
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: After Connor's intervention saves Cutter from dying in the ARC, the clone found in the wreckage reveals to the professor and the rest of the team that Helen's plans go far beyond simply changing the future: she wants to control it as well, and the threat grows even as the clone brings to light a secret that will shake the entire team.
1. Rescued

"_Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,  
><em>_which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world."  
><em>—Mary Shelley, **Frankenstein**

"…_but the flesh did not make the man. The sum of his experiences did.  
>Memories shaped a man's life and gave it purpose and meaning."<br>_—Steven Savile, **Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar**

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, Nick, I can't let you go."<p>

"What the hell are you talking about now?" he demanded, turning around, but then he froze at the sight of her, holding a gun pointed directly at his chest. With a low, exasperated sigh, he turned around. "Oh, for God's sakes," he grumbled softly, then turned to face her once again. "You really know how to pick your moments, don't you?" he asked, shaking his head. This was un-bloody-believable.

"I'm sorry, Nick, but if you'd seen the things I have, you'd understand. The future is more important than either of us," she replied, a slightly manic look in her eyes.

"You know what, Helen?" Cutter said as he stared at the woman that had been his wife. He had once loved her, had once thought that she was the person he could spend his life with; now he was seeing who she really was. She was off the deep end entirely. Madness flickered in the depths of her eyes even as they filled with tears, and the hand holding the gun was trembling. "You're not as smart as I thought you were."

A muscle in her jaw ticked, and he could see her finger tighten on the trigger. He waited for the pain of being shot, knowing there wasn't going to be any escaping this one. But it didn't matter. He knew that Connor would be able to solve the artefact without him. He knew the team would be able to survive. Three things happened extremely fast right then: there was a tremendous crash, something came barreling out of the wreckage and tackled Helen, and the gun went off. Instead of hitting him in the chest, the bullet slammed into his shoulder, staggered him back a step, and knocked him onto his arse. Cutter gave a strangled gasp of pain, blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder, the hot, coppery scent of fresh blood briefly overtaking the smell of smoke and fire.

Another shot was fired, and he looked up from the bleeding hole in his shoulder. The thing that had come out of the wreckage and tackled Helen wasn't a thing at all. Connor Temple was struggling to wrestle the gun out of her grip, covered in soot and ash; suddenly she brought her knee upwards into his stomach, barely missing his groin. Connor doubled over with a strangled wheeze, but then Helen cried out in sudden pain, releasing the gun as if it'd burnt her. Her dark gaze flitted to Cutter for a moment, taking in his blood-covered shoulder, and then she turned and ran away, vanishing into the smoke without a trace. Connor shoved the gun into his belt and ran to Cutter. "Professor…oh God," the boy whispered as he saw the bleeding wound. "C'mon, Prof, let's get the hell out of here."

Cutter gasped in pain as Connor took his unhurt arm and pulled him up to his feet, his vision spinning sickeningly. "The—get th-the artefact," he managed to stammer out, trying to get the room to stop turning.

The student hastily glanced around, grabbed the coat he'd wrapped the artefact in, and held it under one arm. "Let's go. We've been through too much shite together to die now," said Connor quietly, putting his other arm around Cutter and all but dragging him forward. Their progress wasn't the swiftest, given that there was debris scattered all over the place and the professor couldn't exactly make his legs cooperate with his brain's wishes. His nausea and his pain were grappling each other for control, and it was the struggle that kept him from passing out on the spot.

Voices, blurry and indistinct, reached his ears over the loud rushing sound he heard, and he glanced upwards. The entrance to the ARC was only a few metres away now. The sight of fresh air and the scent of sunlight made relief briefly overtake his pain. _Wait a moment, that doesn't sound right,_ he thought, but he couldn't quite puzzle out why. Next thing he knew, he could hear someone shouting for an ambulance, and Jenny's voice calling out to him. _Should've listened to her in the first place_, his mind whispered, but then a peaceful darkness swept across his mind, wiping out all thought.

* * *

><p>To come awake after being unconscious for a very long time was a most disconcerting experience, Nick Cutter decided. He felt as if he was floating, the entire world bathed in a soft, golden-white haze. Part of him wondered if perhaps he was dead and this was the afterlife. <em>Not so bad, I suppose.<em> Slowly, though, that warm, hazy feeling began to dissipate. Little by little, he became aware of his own weight lying on something soft yet firm, not floating at all. There was a sharp scent in the air—latex, antiseptic, and floor cleaner—and his left shoulder felt oddly numb despite a consistent throbbing sensation just below his collarbone. The gold-ivory haze began to fade as well; with a superhuman effort, he managed to get his lashes apart.

Three white walls and a fourth of nothing but windows. The blinds were drawn halfway, bars of shadow-light falling across the rest of the room. Grey tiled floors. One door—he could see a black-clad soldier lingering outside. Cutter let his lashes fall shut for a moment longer, struggling to make his cotton-filled brain make sense of what he'd seen. _Hospital room. Why am I in a hospital room?_

The numbed feeling in his shoulder was fading, and the consistent throbbing ache he felt was getting sharper as the numbness waned. It was a sharp, persisting pain that struck every other heartbeat or so. _Ah…Helen. She shot me,_ he remembered. He remembered fire and smoke, his ex-wife holding a gun. Christ, his life was insane. Now he could hear the hushed hum and chirp of machines, tracking his bodily functions, ensuring he wasn't dead just yet, and he could feel something warm wrapped around his hand.

His eyes came open once more. Jenny Lewis was sitting in the chair beside his hospital bed, curled up and fast asleep; it was _her_ hand that was holding onto his protectively. For a moment, he simply watched her. She was still wearing the same clothes from the explosion, her hair was unkempt, and her face was make-up free and bearing smudges of soot. He wasn't looking at two women, he was looking at one—Jenny Lewis. As alike as she looked to Claudia Brown, they weren't the same. They were two different people, with different strengths and weaknesses. Identical twins, in a sense: alike on the outside but entirely unique inside. _And it only took a bullet for me to figure it out,_ he thought wryly. How bloody thick _was_ he?

He squeezed her fingers. "Jenny," he said, but his voice came out as barely more than a rasping whisper. Cutter swallowed hard and tried again. "Jenny."

Her lashes fluttered, then parted. "Nick? Oh, God, you're awake!" she gasped, sitting upright in the chair. "How are you feeling?"

"Pleasantly numb, really," he answered, though it was difficult to speak. "How long have I been out?"

"Not that long," she answered. Jenny reached out and lightly touched his cheek, and he tilted his head against her palm. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Nick Cutter. Do you hear me? Ever. I swear to God, if I have to visit you in a hospital again, I'll shackle you to your desk and make you live off rations of lettuce leaves and water," she threatened, lightly pulling on his hair.

He smiled weakly, turning his head to kiss the soft skin of her palm. "Yes, ma'am." When he looked up at her face, he could see that Jenny's lashes were suspiciously damp, and he sighed quietly. "Oh, Jenny…."

She bent forward and kissed his cheek. For a moment, the faint smell of smoke and musk replaced the sharp, clean scent of the hospital, and soft curls of her hair brushed against his skin. When she leant away, it was physical effort to open his eyes again. Jenny took his hand in her own, and she seemed about to say something else when the door of the hospital room opened. A young woman in a nurse uniform came in; she had honey-coloured skin, and her hair and eyes were a similar shade of brown, which made her look oddly monochromatic. The fact that she wore tan scrubs only added to that. When the nurse saw him awake, she scolded Jenny for not calling the doctor and set about checking his vitals. The PR smiled and lightly squeezed Cutter's hand. "Well, I'm going to head back to the ARC now, tell the others you're awake. We've got a lot of work to do," she said with a small laugh, and she ran her thumb across his knuckles before releasing his hand and leaving the room.

Cutter watched her go, sighed softly, and let his head fall back against the pillows with a smile on his face.

"Your wife, she loves you very much," said the nurse with a barely detectable Spanish accent. "She hardly ever left, neither did your son."

It took him a moment to realise that she was talking about Jenny and Connor. "She's not my wife," he corrected. "My wife is the one who shot me."

The nurse's eyebrows shot up.

* * *

><p>Connor sighed quietly as he picked his way across the wreckage of the ARC. The fires had all been extinguished, and it was at last deemed safe enough for people to reenter the structure. Most had been evacuated from the main part of the building, so hopefully, there wouldn't be too many casualties. S&amp;R was already combing the ruins for any injured. He looked down at the mangled remains of the ADD and sighed dejectedly, hands in his pockets. <em>That'll be a bitch to fix,<em> he thought. He leant down and began to carefully sift through the machine; perhaps he could salvage some of their files if the hard drive wasn't too badly damaged. As he shifted aside a piece of broken monitor, he heard a faint moan from somewhere underneath the debris. "Hello? Someone under there?" he called, not sure if his ears were deceiving him or not.

There it was again, a tiny groan, barely audible but there. Connor hastily bent down and began to move aside more of the debris. He lifted aside a chunk of metallic debris, revealing a dirty, bloodied arm. "Oh, God," he said quietly, then stood up. "Oi! Hey, there's someone over here!" he shouted. He pulled aside another piece of the rubble and gasped. It was the clone, not one of the Cleaners, but Cutter's; the clone was covered in soot, his clothes were torn and bloodied, and his hair was matted down on one side with blood.

Several medics came into the room, and he waved them over. "Quickly, over here," he said, moving aside to let the medics study the still form underneath the rubble. Connor turned and headed back outside. "Jenny!" he called, spotting the form of the PR among the others. "What are you doing here?"

"Nick's awake," she said; Connor sighed in relief, as did the others. "What's going on here?"

"The clone's alive," he said, and everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "Cutter's clone. I just found him inside."

Even as he spoke, the S&R team went past, taking the clone into another waiting ambulance; so covered in dirt and filth as he was, it was hard to tell just how injured he was, but there was no mistaking the dark wetness on his clothes as anything but fresh blood.

"I hope it dies," said Abby, her voice surprisingly cold, and Connor looked down at her in shock. When she noticed his stunned expression, she frowned. "What? That isn't natural, Connor. There shouldn't ever be a clone of someone. It's just _wrong._ It's unnatural."

He didn't answer her, just looked back at the ambulance in silence.

* * *

><p>The echo whimpered in pain, the harsh, glaring lights too bright in his eyes, cold air raking across his too-sensitive skin, causing agony to fire through his hypersensitive nerves. Something was wrong. Something was so very wrong. He could not hear the Mistress in his head; Her voice was not there any longer. He whined softly, shudders wracking his entire frame from head to toe, nothing but his own thoughts rattling around inside his own head, echoing in that empty space where the Mistress had once been. Curling up on his side, he buried his head in both arms, hands fisted in his hair; every part of him hurt, from head to toes, a consistent, stabbing, wrenching pain that refused to go away. Where was the Mistress? Why had She left him? He wasn't sure what was happening to him, but it felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside. He tried to call out for Mistress, but all that left him was a small, low-pitched whine.<p>

_"What are we going to do with it?"_ a voice said, huge and enormous, echoing in his ears. It wasn't like the Mistress's voice, but rather a different one, someone _else,_ and he'd been separated from the Mistress; She could not protect him now. He was alone.

_"I don't know. Keep it alive for now. We might learn something from it later,"_ said another Voice that felt as if it reverberated in his bones. He realised that they were talking about _him_. The echo shivered again, and a fresh wave pain rippled across his frame. Something sharp stuck into his skin, and he couldn't even find his voice to cry out in pain, only a weak, cracked sound rasping from his throat as he tried to shy away from the sharp thing. A tingling numbness began to spread through his body, a black oblivion overcoming his mind.


	2. Dreaming

Everything _hurt._ He ached in places he didn't even know he had places at all, and shivers ran through him, making his aching muscles quiver. Whenever he tried to take a breath, it hurt in his chest and his lungs; swallowing burned his throat. His back felt worse than it did that time he was punished after Mistress found him trying to read. His head was aching something fierce as well, a consistent ache that spread down to his neck and shoulders, and something burned terribly on his face, as if someone had taken a knife and dragged it down the side of his face. His left arm throbbed with agony that he felt from his shoulder down to his fingertips. He wanted to sob, cry out for his Mistress to help him, for _anyone_ to help him, make this pain just _stop_, but he couldn't speak for the pain in his throat. The consistent aching discomfort plagued him so severely he could not even manage to sleep, find some reprieve in his dreams.

The echo of Nick Cutter often dreamt. The Mistress said that he was not supposed to dream, so he had never told Her of it, afraid that he would be punished for it. He didn't know how to _not_ dream. His dreams were usually painful and flickering, full of confusion and disorientation and lots of red colours and pain, but every now and then, his mind would sink down into a calmer, better state that didn't hurt quite so much. There was one dream in particular he often had, though it was more of a memory than a dream; it was from brief time in the future after the Mistress took him from the Institute.

He dreamt/remembered being in the city with the Mistress; She had insisted upon physical exercise in the first few days after his awakening so his muscles would grow used to exertion and he could learn coordination. She had stopped at a bookstore to peruse the selection; he could not read, so he had stood beside Her and looked into the window of the shop beside it. In the window display had been several objects—a small aeroplane, model trains on little tracks, cars, and other such things, most carved of wood. There was a man inside, sitting on a stool with a piece of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. He worked at the wood with the blade, whittling away, shaping it into small arms, small legs, a face. As the Mistress sat on a bench to read, the echo stood and watched the man smooth out the rough parts of the small wooden manikin with a piece of sandpaper, pick up a tiny wig of soft blond hair, and fasten it on the manikin's head with some glue. Finally, the man picked up a small white dress and buttoned it around the small wooden person with care. His long-fingered hands looked as if they were dancing, moving so delicately, so _lovingly_, as he fashioned his little creation.

When the echo imagined how _he_ was created after seeing the man in the shop, that was how he imagined it, even though the reality of his creation had never been fully explained to him. He'd asked the Mistress once, and She had told him there was fire involved and that he had been stitched together…and then She'd forbade him from ever asking again, reminding him that the next time he spoke without permission, he would be punished. So when he laid awake on the floor in the Institute near the other echoes, unable to sleep in the darkness, he would imagine the Mistress sitting at a great wooden desk in a workshop full of many different tools, sunlight glinting off wood and metal. In Her hands She had a bit of the original's hair or skin, just enough of his _self_ to use to make the echo look just like him, to put a bit of him into the echo. All the rest of him was put together from other pieces, pieces of someone else, perhaps someone long dead. Old bones smoked out to clean them. Old flesh burned to whittle it down. Fire stoked high to shape him to fit the mold that had been cast for him. The Mistress stitched him together, adding his organs and all the other little bits and pieces that lay within him, that make him work, and then glued his edges together to make him whole. She buttoned on his clothes and fitted on his Collar and seared the Mark into his skin. The hands of his Mistress looked as though they were dancing. But no matter how many times he imagined it, Her hands never moved as though they love him. Because they don't. The echo knew that they didn't. It was a fact he had always known. His Mistress created him just as She created the other echoes, but She doesn't love him, no more than She loves the other echoes. She stitched him and them together, and She gave them their Collars and their Marks so they knew, always, that they belonged to _Her_.

_"Has it woken up yet?"_ asked one of the Voices from before, making him gasp at the sudden pain it caused his overly-sensitised nerves, like wet silk dragged across stone.

_"No, sir. Just lays there moaning,"_ said a new Voice, this one gruff and cold, reminding the echo of the _others,_ the dark _Other_ echoes that the Mistress used to harm others. _"Medics say it'll come 'round eventually, though. We'll just have to wait, I suppose."_

The echo shivered at the sound of the terrible Voices, just as loud and powerful as the Mistress's, ringing in his ears and making all his bones tremble. He wished they would go away, leave him alone, let him rest. He was so _tired_, and everything was _hurting_ so much. He wanted to sleep. _Let me sleep. Please. Just…let me sleep…._

* * *

><p>Lester couldn't help but sneer as he looked down at the prone figure of the clone, still curled up on the cot. It hadn't done anything but lay there whimpering since the medics pulled it out of the wreckage of the ARC where Temple found it. "Keep your watch, Captain. I don't want any of these recent events to <em>ever<em> be repeated," he said coldly.

Becker gave a brisk nod. "Yes, sir," he replied.

The suited man reached up and smoothed out his tie. "I now have the ultimate pleasure of informing the _actual_ Cutter that his…doppelgänger…is still alive," he said in a tone of voice that said he would rather have bamboo splinters shoved under his fingernails than go and talk to the professor.

Becker barely managed to bite back a loud, unprofessional snort. "Good luck, then, sir," he said in a voice strained with fought-down laughter.

* * *

><p>"It's still <em>alive?"<em> Cutter repeated incredulously, looking from Lester to Jenny as if searching for any sign of deceit, hoping that maybe one of them would crack a smile and say _'got you!'_ But neither did. Their faces were set in stone.

"We thought that, being a part of Helen's plot, it might yield some pertinent information," Lester replied coolly as he brushed a piece of nonexistent lint off his expensive suit. His voice sounded entirely calm, smooth and flawless, as if he was doing no more than discussing the new annual budget instead of the survival of a perfect genetic replica of Cutter's own genetic material. "Don't strain yourself, Professor, it is being kept under watch; Captain Becker himself has personally taken on the task."

_Strain myself, my arse,_ Cutter thought. Using his good arm, he pushed himself up into a better sitting position. "What the hell is this? Are you out of your mind?" he demanded, gritting his teeth at the sharp pain that movement sent through his injured shoulder, his arm strapped to his chest. "Get rid of it."

"Nick—" Jenny started to say.

"No. I want it gone," he said. It made him feel uneasy down to his very core, the idea of another version of himself existing. Another living, breathing person identical to him in every way, down to a genetic level. It made him feel sick even thinking about it, that creature—he wasn't sure he could call it a person—living in the ARC whilst he was here in the hospital. It made him apprehensive.

"At least let us talk to him first, find out if he has anything worth knowing," Jenny pressed, stepping closer to him and lightly placing her hand on his uninjured arm, fingertips lightly resting on his sleeve. "We don't know what Helen's plan is, and we have to figure it out. The clone might be able to tell us something about what she's doing. We're running blind here, Nick, especially with the ARC in the state it is at the moment. If it knows anything useful, we need to find out what."

Cutter shook his head stubbornly. "No. I want it _gone."_ He didn't want that…_thing_ to be alive any longer than was absolutely necessary. He wanted it gone. Now.

* * *

><p>Connor walked down the hallway to the room where Becker had been standing watch over the clone. The black-clad soldier stood just outside the door, holding his shotgun in a relaxed grip; there was a kind of lupine grace about the captain, even when standing still, like a wolf full of easy, prowling confidence. It was the kind of stance that said he was aware of every muscle and joint in his body and had total control over each one. "What do you want, Temple?" asked Becker, arching one brow.<p>

"I-I wanted to go see him," he replied, pointing to the door. "The clone, I mean."

"Why?"

Connor frowned slightly. "What d'you mean, 'why'? I just wanted to go see how he's doing. The guy was a little roughed up, y'know, after being in an _explosion_," he said, unable to fully keep the facetious tone out of his voice; well, it _was_a stupid question.

Becker returned the frown, staring at him with inscrutable dark eyes, then shifted to the side and unlocked the door. "Go on, then. Five minutes, that's all," he ordered briskly.

The room that Connor walked into was very much like a prison cell. There were no windows and only the one door, which locked from the outside. There was no furniture other than the cot that the clone was lying on, looking like he'd been run over by a bus. There was hardly an inch of him not mottled with dark purplish-black bruises or bandaged with white gauze. There was a crooked line of stitches down the side of the clone's bruised face, running from hairline to chin. It barely missed his eye, though it did cut through his eyebrow, and the cut forked at the bottom, reaching to the corner of his mouth and then down to his jaw. _Well, at least now we can always tell them apart,_ Connor thought wryly, though part of him ached with sympathy. There was no way that it couldn't hurt, and it wasn't easy, seeing this man that looked like Cutter in such a weak, pained state.

The clone was twitching and groaning on the cot, breathing raspily; every now and again his brows would draw together in a frown. Connor gently touched his fingertips to the man's arm and was surprised to feel how hot and feverish he felt. Unwinding his scarf, Connor stepped over to the sink, running cold water into the cloth before returning to the cot, very, _very_ gently touching the wet cloth to the stitches. The clone let out a soft whimper, but his body relaxed slightly. "Bet that feels better, don't it? You'll be alright, mate. Don't worry," he murmured.

* * *

><p>The echo was beginning to wish he had died. The pain was not going away. In fact, it seemed to only be getting worse, and now his body could not seem to decide upon a temperature. One moment he shivered uncontrollably, and the next he felt as though burning from within.<p>

Something touched his arm, making him shudder. A moment later, though, something damp and cool touched the aching, throbbing pain on the side of his face, cooling the terrible burning feeling that radiated through it. A whimper of relief slipped from his lips, the first noise he had made that was not of pain. _"Bet that feels better, don't it? You'll be alright, mate. Don't worry,"_ said a new Voice, but this one was not like the others. It was not loud and terrible and painful, but rather low and very soft, like velvet rubbed the wrong way, dragging across his exposed nerves pleasantly. The heavenly coolness on his cheek shifted slightly, making him sigh again.

He did not know who this new presence was, but he very much liked it.


	3. Awakened

The echo awoke without pain for the first time in what felt like an eternity all its own. He was still sore and aching, but he no longer felt as if being ripped apart from inside. His head still felt thick and heavy, but it didn't feel as though a knife was carving his face open. He could hear the Voices once more, more than one—the cold Other and the low soft one he liked to hear. Wanting to know who owned the Voices, he parted his lashes slowly, though only one eye could open; the other one was swollen shut.

He saw two people. One was large and broad, dressed all in black, holding a gun. The echo felt his breath freeze in his throat, recognising one of the Others; it might not be one of the Mistress's, but he knew that the Others were dangerous no matter what, that it was their existence to kill. The other person was smaller, slighter, and wore many different colours, nothing quite matching. It was a visual delight that the echo was transfixed by. They were speaking; his ears felt as if they were full of cotton, making it hard to hear, and he had to concentrate hard to discern the words.

"The hell do you think that you're doing, Temple?" demanded the Other in that cold voice he knew so well, just like the Mistress's. "We don't know how drugs will affect it."

The colourful one was smaller than the Other yet didn't back away from that harsh voice; the echo didn't think he'd be so brave. "Stop that, stop calling him an 'it'. He's a person, not an end table. And he was in _pain_, I wasn't just gonna let him lay there and suffer. Look at his face. It was only a half-dose of morphine, anyways."

_My face? Is there something wrong with my face?_ The echo wondered if perhaps he had been wounded and that was why his head hurt so much. The colourful one—the Other had called him _Temple_—had done something to stop his pain, with something called morphine. He didn't know what morphine was, but if it could stop him from hurting so much, then he was quite sure that he liked it. It was the Temple that had put the cold wetness on his face earlier, too, then.

"Lester is gonna be pissed when he finds out. He said that nobody is supposed to give it anything," said the Other.

The Temple gave a snorting noise. "I'm not afraid of Lester, so tell on me if you want to, Action Man," he ordered, pointing to the door.

The Other stood for a moment before turning and striding out of the room. Temple turned back towards him, and the echo hastily closed his eye and feigned sleep. There were soft footsteps, and then a gentle hand touched him on the shoulder, very gently as to not hurt him. "Don't worry. I'll not let them hurt you," said the Temple's soft voice. Then the hand pulled away; there was a rustle of fabric before something warm and soft was draped over him, and then Temple left the room, the door closing.

He didn't bother trying to open his eyes again, so instead he just laid there, contemplating everything he had learnt in the past moments. The Other did not like him, and apparently neither did this…_Lester,_ whatever that was, because the Lester had said to let him suffer. The Temple, though, was good. The Temple had given him morphine—he didn't know what it was, except that it alleviated his pain—and put something cold on his face to soothe him when he was burning and could make the Other leave and had given him whatever this…_covering_ was, that was so warm and soft and comforting. The echo was starting to feel very drowsy, and he yawned, curling up tighter. Yes…the Temple was _very_ good.

* * *

><p>When the echo woke up again, he could open both eyes, and he could move his body without agony. He started to sit up and gasped when he realised that he was lying in a bed. This was bad, very bad. He was never permitted to sleep in beds. Not even when he was in the Institute was he given a bed. He would surely be punished for this. Terrified, he hastily rolled off the bed, falling onto the floor. He crawled across the floor until he was in the corner of the room, pressing back into the corner and drawing his knees up to his chest. He would be punished for sleeping in a bed, he was certain of it, probably by the Other that seemed to hate him so much.<p>

Burying his face against his knees, the echo sat there and trembled, waiting for the punishment that was sure to come to him.

* * *

><p>"Have you learnt anything useful yet, Captain Becker?" asked Jenny as she and Cutter approached the room where the clone was being kept. The professor still felt like he'd been run over by a bus, and his shoulder was aching something fierce, but he refused to stay in the hospital. His argument was that if they were going to interrogate his own damned clone, then he had the bloody right to see it.<p>

"No, it won't speak to anyone; it doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't _move_. It won't speak, just there. Damn thing is scared of its own shadow," Becker replied, the frustration evident in his voice. "Maybe you'll have a little more luck. It's yours, after all," he said, addressing Cutter as he unlocked the door, allowing them to walk in.

The room was very much a prison cell, with no windows and only the one door. There was a single plain cot, though it was unslept in, and nothing else. The clone had been dressed in plain clothes—black t-shirt, trousers, and shoes, probably spares from the other SAS blokes. It crouched in the corner of the room furthest from the door, knees drawn up to its chest, arms hooked around both legs, head buried in its knees; all they could see of the clone was the top of its pale blond hair. If not for the faintest movement of its back as it breathed, the clone might have been a statue.

"Hasn't moved from there. The moment it woke up, it just got off the cot, sat over there, and stayed there," he said, looking over at Jenny and Cutter, who were both gazing at the clone with expressions of mixed curiosity, disgust, and wariness. Becker shook his head and glanced over at the dark form that was still hunched, unmoving in the corner of the room. "I still say that we handle this situation right now and get rid of it—"

_"I am not an it!"_ the clone nearly screamed, startling everyone out of their skin. They all turned to look at the carbon copy, still crouched in the corner of the room with knees pulled up to its chest and arms wrapped around its legs. It had lifted his head to glare at them, fire in its eyes as it glared at the captain. There was a crooked line of stitches running down the left side of its face, hairline to chin, forking at the bottom to touch the corner of its mouth and curving down to its jaw. For a moment, it stared at them furiously, the scar giving it a fearsome look, but then it lost the furious gaze, replaced by an almost lost expression, like an abandoned child. "I am not an it," the clone repeated softly, then rested its head against its knees once more, pale hair obscuring its face.

Jenny glanced over at the professor, then touched his arm and stepped forward, crouching on her toes to look at the clone. It was bizarre, looking at this…creature…who looked just like the man she cared so much about. "Then what are you?" she asked softly.

It slowly raised its head to look at her. "I am not an it. The Mistress called me Nick Cutter, but I am not him. _He_—" It pointed to the professor. "—is Nick Cutter."

She felt a little ill, hearing Cutter's voice call Helen _'Mistress.'_ "That's right. You know what you are, then?" she asked, and it…he…nodded slowly. "Where did you come from?" she asked; the clone frowned in obvious puzzlement. "I-I mean, Helen must have had you created somewhere. Do you know where that is?"

He nodded again. "It is called The Osiris Dynamic Institute. It will not exist for another 137 years. They created and patented the process of creating echoes and specialises in genetic engineering, gene manipulation, and recombinant DNA synthesis," he murmured. "After going through the proper channels and providing DNA samples, Mistress can create echoes of whomever she wishes."

"Anyone?" Becker echoed in a faint voice.

"This is unbelievably dangerous," said Jenny as she straightened up, stepping back over to stand beside the other two men. "I mean, Helen could make a clone of any one of us and infiltrate the ARC."

"That was Her plan," said a soft Scottish burr, and they all turned around. The clone was looking at them with familiar blue eyes, some of his pale gold hair falling into his eyes; he didn't bother trying to brush it away. "The Mistress wanted to take control of the ARC, but She wanted to be able to ensure Her way inside, a failsafe. If I did not arouse suspicion, then Mistress would begin to replace the others, one by one, until She could control the ARC by proxy through us."

"Jesus," said Connor faintly; as they talked, he, Sarah, and Abby had joined them, standing in the doorway and listening to their conversation. "So...are there clones? Of us, I mean?"

The genetic photocopy nodded his head. "Yes. Mistress made one of all of you," he answered in that soft, oddly childlike way of speaking he had.

"How many clones are there?" Becker demanded.

"Of the Other, there are many. Of you, there is only one, same as the rest of you."

They all were silent for a few long minutes, all of them mulling over their own thoughts, trying to imagine a genetically identical photocopy of themselves in Helen's control, a living, breathing mirror image.

"We have to think of something," announced Becker. "A way to identify who's real and who's not if ever she tries this again."

"A password, maybe?" suggested Connor.

The gentle voice spoke up again. "Check for the Mark," the clone said, and they all turned towards him again; Jenny asked, "What mark?"

The copy unfolded his limbs from the curled-up position he was in, stood up, and turned his back to Jenny. With one hand, he lifted his hair away from the back of his neck; right at the nape of his neck, just below his hairline, was a tattoo, stark black against the paleness of his skin. It was a jagged lightning flash less than half the size of her little fingernail, and one part of the bolt crisscrossed with another so that, to Jenny, it almost looked like a capital 'H'. For Helen. "We all have one," announced the clone. "It is the insignia of Osiris Dynamic Institute. Every echo is given a Mark so we can be recognised if we were ever to remove the Collar."

"Collar?" Connor repeated from the doorway. "What do you mean, collar?"

"In the future where I was created, many people create echoes, sometimes of people that have been dead for a very long time. They are not allowed the same privileges as originals. They were never actually born, so they are not considered to be people. They are required to wear a Collar." He lifted a hand to his neck, rubbing his fingers across his throat. "I wore one, but when we arrived, Mistress removed it."

"My God," mumbled Connor; the idea of collaring another human being made him feel uneasy; clone or not, nobody deserved the indignity of being collared like an animal.

Cutter was staring at the wall without really seeing it. "You said that there were other clones, one of every one of us," he said, voice hoarse. "Is there one of a man called Stephen Hart?"

Everyone in the room went tense, turning to look at the clone in dreadful anticipation of his answer. "She never said his last name, but Mistress did make an echo from a blood sample She took from a man called Stephen," he replied. When he noticed the looks of shock and disgust and horror on the faces of everyone else in the room, he tilted his head. "What?"


	4. Protector

"Have I done something wrong?" asked the clone once the others had cleared the room.

Connor glanced over at the other man in surprise. The clone was looking at him with a kind of nervous curiosity, but immediately dropped his gaze to the floor when Connor looked at him. "No," he answered. "It's just...Stephen Hart was a very good friend of ours, and he died because of something Helen did," he replied, feeling his chest tighten a little. "So it's upsetting to Cutter, hearing that she made a clone of him."

"Echo."

"Beg pardon?"

The other man flinched slightly, eyes to the floor. "We are called echoes," he mumbled softly.

"Oh. Do you have a name?" Connor asked.

The echo shook his head slowly. "No. It is not my name, it belongs to the original," he answered.

Connor didn't need any explanation beyond that. The only name the echo had been given was the name of Nick Cutter, but he wasn't the professor. "Well, that might have to change, 'cause I know you aren't Cutter, but I'm not gonna call you 'echo' all the time," he said, pushing both hands in his pockets.

Familiar pale blue eyes lifted to his for a split second in shock before looking away just as hastily. "You mean, I would have my own name?" he asked, and from the note of awed disbelief in his voice, it was obvious he never thought such a thing would ever be possible.

"Well, yeah. 'Course." Connor had never hated another person before. He'd felt some pretty strong feelings of dislike and perhaps loathing, but he had never actively _hated._ But he was really starting to very actively hate Helen Cutter. He'd always felt a variety of things about her: fear, wariness, a sort of morbid curiosity, but now it was all just starting to bubble down to the very basic sensation of simply hating her. He wasn't sure how it started, but he knew it for a fact after the crazy bird shot his professor and blew up the ARC. What really set it in stone, though, was the fact that she created this echo and didn't seem to give a half a thought whether or not he lived or died. She had never even given him a _name._

Connor stood up and lightly placed one hand against the echo's shoulder before moving away, heading towards the door. He glanced back over his shoulder at the other man. "Don't worry, mate, we're gonna take care of this mess. We are," he reassured.

"The others do not like me," the echo replied softly.

He smiled, allowing himself to look a bit more confident than he felt. "I'm not scared of them," he answered, then paused and swallowed hard. "I won't let them hurt you. Promise." The echo might not be the real Nick Cutter, but he was still a person, another real, living, breathing human being that had the right to live as much as anyone else did. Connor knew that he wasn't exactly a fighter or anything of the sort, but he'd be damned if he'd let Lester or Becker or anyone else kill the man simply for the crime of existing, of having the misfortune of being made by Helen Cutter. He knew that he was probably alone on that front, but he wasn't about to let that stop him. It seemed to him that, in the echo's relatively short life, nobody had ever really cared whether or not he lived or died. Connor didn't know why he cared so much, but he did. A part of him was glad for it. A lot of things could be changed about a person, but not caring? There was nothing in the world that could fix that, and even if he suffered for it, Connor couldn't _not_ care about this echo. And he wouldn't let anyone else hurt him, either.

* * *

><p>After giving his promise, the Temple left the room, allowing the echo to be alone. He didn't dare get up onto the bed again, because he knew that if he did, then the Other would come back in and surely punish him for it. Instead he sat on the floor in the corner, fingers gently probing along the tender wound down the side of his face, careful not to touch the ridges of stitches that he could feel. It hurt some, and when the stitches were removed, he knew that he would be scarred from it. A part of him was quite happy about it, because he knew that the original did not have the scar, that it was just <em>his.<em>

The Temple had promised to not let the Others hurt him, not the Others nor the Lester, though he still didn't know what that was. The rest of the originals treated him with different emotions: disgust, morbid curiosity, hatred, and simple animosity. Except for the Temple. He was the only one that looked at the echo with kindness and spoke gently and did anything to ease his pain. He had not even punished the echo for correcting him or speaking without permission, two things that the Mistress would have whipped him raw for.

And a name. He had promised a name. The echo didn't have a name, not one that belonged to him. The only name that'd ever been given to him was the one that belonged to the original. It wasn't _his_ name. The Mistress said that he was not a person, so he did not get a name. No echo was actually a person. That was why they were given Marks and Collars. Usually they were given a sequence of letters and numbers, etched into their Collars, to be identified with. But the Temple didn't seem to care that he was an echo. He looked at him like he was an actual person, like his Mark didn't exist, and said that he would be given a name, a name that was _his_.

He wondered what the other echoes would think if they knew he had a name, if they saw his scar. He had not seen them for almost a fortnight now, not since he left the Institute with Mistress. As the thought rose to the forefront of his mind, the echo gasped in shock when he felt a sudden, twisting pain in the centre of his chest, not quite his heart but right near it. He grasped at his chest, afraid that he had somehow injured himself, but there was nothing but the black fabric of his shirt. There was no wound. But then what had he felt?

Felt.

He had _felt_ something. The echo sank back against the wall, the cool touch of the metal against his back providing slight distraction. He had felt something. Not physical sensation, but...emotional. He had never been able to _feel_ anything before. There had always been a void there, in that place where emotion was supposed to be housed, a cool, empty vacuum of space that contained nothing, held no warmth. The echo drew his knees up against his chest, ignoring the throb of very-physical pain that it sent through his bruised muscles and joints. What was happening to him? He wondered if perhaps being around the originals was doing something to him, affecting him in some unforeseen way.

The echo put his head back against the wall. He did not know what was going to happen, but he knew, on some base level, beyond comprehension or understanding, that the Temple, the one that looked at him like a person instead of just an echo, could be trusted.

* * *

><p>"You're not going to kill him."<p>

Lester turned in his chair slightly to look at Temple with eyebrows raised. "Excuse me?" he said, his voice silky soft and all the more dangerous for it as he levelled a cold glare at the boy. He had once made an intern _cry_ by looking at them like that, but to his shock, the shabby little pest straightened up slightly and met his glare defiantly. Lester felt suddenly like he was looking at a younger, badly-dressed Cutter.

"I said, _you're not going to kill him,"_ the student repeated, enunciating his words as if Lester was hard-of-hearing. "I won't let you."

_Let me? Who does this little ragamuffin think he is?_ the bureaucrat thought indignantly; anger flared up hot in him, and he forcibly shoved it back down, maintaining his composure. "And just why is that, Mr. Temple?" he asked, putting every bit of icy warning into the question as he could.

Maitland, spunky and quick-tempered as she was, was still smart enough to know trouble when she heard it, because she reached out to grasp her flatmate by the arm. "Connor, don't," she murmured softly. Lester hoped that he would listen to the little blond, but no dice.

Temple shook his head doggedly. "No. I'm not gonna let him."

"That's enough," Cutter warned from where he was sitting down, blue eyes cautioning as he looked up at his errant student. The Scotsman still looked weary, dark shadows beneath his eyes and a look of exhaustion about him, like he had gone years without sleep. His arm was still strapped, and he looked as ragged as ever. It wasn't very often that Lester felt any sort of sympathy for his underlings, but he felt a rare exception looking at the bedraggled professor.

"I said, _no."_ This was crossing into twilight-zone territory. Not a single time since the entire anomaly project began could anyone in the room recall Temple actually telling the professor 'no'. Even Cutter himself looked shocked, eyebrows lifting. The young man let out an irritated huff of breath. "I can't believe this. Don't you even _hear_ yourselves?"

"What exactly should we be hearing, then?" snapped Jenny, arms folded tight beneath her breasts. "Go on, enlighten us."

"You're talking about _murdering_ someone," Temple answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. When he got nothing but blank stares in return, his expression turned to one of shock. "Jesus, guys, doesn't that even bother you a little bit?"

"Connor," said Maitland in a placating tone, like a parent trying to calm a fussy child. "It's not really a person. It's some clone that Helen made in a lab."

_"He,_ Abby, _he_. Stop with that whole 'it' business. He's a person, not a rug. And he _is_ a person. Just because Helen created him doesn't mean that he's less of a human being. He's a living, breathing human being, and what _you're_ talking about is murder," he spat, jabbing an accusing finger at Lester. "Listen to yourselves. You are talking about killing another person simply because he had the misfortune of being involved with Helen."

"It wasn't just 'involved' with Helen," said Cutter from where he sat. "She created it."

"Maybe, but it's not like he asked for it, did he?" Temple shot back. "I mean, he didn't ask to be made an echo, he didn't ask for Helen to be some stark raving lunatic. It wasn't his fault, what she made him do, and I won't just stand here and let you kill _him_ because of what _she_ did." He looked around the room for some kind of support, hoping to find someone that agreed with him, but all he got were blank, unresponsive looks in return. His already-pale face went even whiter, ghostly pale in contrast to his dark hair and eyes. "I don't believe this," he said in a soft, disbelieving voice. He took a step back and shook his head vigorously, making a pushing away gesture with both gloved hands. "That's it. I'm not...I can't do this. I'm done."

Lester arched one eyebrow. "Are you insinuating that you won't work with the team any longer?" he asked, unable to fully keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"I'm not insinuating, I'm saying," Temple answered coldly, then looked at the rest of his team. "I mean, if you guys can really just sit here and talk about killing a man just because he had the misfortune of being Helen's creation with straight faces and not feel even the least bit remorseful, then..." He shook his head again, but this time the gesture was more pitying than anything. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but if that is the case, then...I am ashamed to even call you my friends, and I for damn sure won't be your teammate."

"Connor," gasped Maitland softly.

"You can't be serious," said Becker. "You'd pick that _thing_ over your team?" He took a step forward as he spoke, straightening up so that he stood at least three inches taller than the student, looking down to meet his eyes.

Despite the fact that the captain was three inches taller, probably forty pounds heavier, and far more experienced in a fight, Temple didn't back up. He didn't even blink. He set his shoulders and glared right back up at the taller man. Even though he was smaller, he somehow managed to look bigger than Becker at that moment. "I'll take an echo over a murderer any day," he replied just as coldly.

"Enough!" Lester barked, raising his voice slightly. "Captain Becker, stand down." Reluctantly, the black-clad soldier backed up a step, though his fists were still clenched at his sides. The bureaucrat leveled a cool, evaluating stare at Temple. It was quite clear that the student wasn't going to back down on this matter, and as much as he _loathed_ to admit it, Lester did actually need the scruffy pest around, to keep that damned detector working and to provide them with the information on the creatures that was so esoteric not even Cutter could claim to know it. "Very well, then. Mr. Temple, seeing as how you have appointed yourself as this...creature's protector, then _you_ will be responsible for it. If it causes trouble, if I even so much as _suspect_ that it is working against us, then it _will_ be disposed of, and you _will_ be held responsible," he said firmly and clearly, so there could be no misunderstanding between them.

Temple didn't flinch or hesitate. "So be it," he agreed.


	5. Dissent

"Connor! Oi, Conn, hold up, I wanna talk to you," Abby called as they departed from Lester's office. Her flatmate was walking faster than normal, almost striding, and she had to half-jog to catch up with him. "What the hell was that back there?" she asked. She could count on the fingers of one hand how many times Connor had ever gotten angry, _really_ angry, but in the office, he hadn't just gotten angry. He'd been _pissed._ She had also never once heard him go against Cutter so openly. Usually, if student and professor disagreed, then the former would just skulk and feebly whinge about it before submitting to the latter. And all of it was over a _clone._ She didn't understand it.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he replied in a short, clipped voice.

She reached out and caught him by the arm, pulling him to a stop. "Just tell me one thing. What is it about that…" She saw the dangerous glitter in his eyes and changed her words mid-sentence. "…clone that's got you so up in arms?"

He stared at her for a long moment. His eyes were the sort that seemed to change colour depending on his mood, and now they were black, so black it was impossible to tell the difference between iris and pupil. There was an intensity in his black gaze that felt as if he was looking clean through her, reading the thoughts right off the back of her skull, and it made her want to squirm. "If I have to explain it to you, Abby, then you obviously don't see it," he replied cryptically, then turned on heel and walked away from her.

* * *

><p>Becker shook his head as he sat in the armoury, cleaning his favourite shotgun with care.<p>

He hadn't been working this post very long, but already he had figured out the basic power structure within the ARC. At the top of the ladder was Lester, the silent watchman that keep a sharp eye on everyone. Cutter was just below him, though sometimes it seemed he was more the boss than anyone else, a tough, stubborn bastard with a sort of insane brilliance to him. In Becker's opinion, all geniuses were a bit mad, and the professor certainly fit that bill. He had a sort of bitter, wounded air about him, as if he'd already lost far too much and damned if he was going to lose any more. Jenny was level with Cutter, a keen-minded woman with a rather remarkable ability to spin plausible stories to cover up the anomalies, a veritable magician in the way she smoothed out things with the media and kept their work secret. She was snide and a bit forthcoming at times, but there was still a softness about her. Becker respected her for it either way. And then there was Temple and Maitland.

Maitland was alright. Becker admired her attitude and her aptitude with a gun. She was a spunky firecracker, that was for sure, but she reminded him far too much of his younger sister to ever be a potential girlfriend. She was tough and athletic, probably the only person in the ARC that could take on Becker in a hand-to-hand fight. She was just as ferociously protective of the creatures as Cutter was, something that he found utterly infuriating at times, but he still respected her loyalty. He didn't have a doubt that she would stand by her team no matter what it cost her. But Temple...

Oh, boy.

Becker wasn't even sure that he had the words to describe Connor Temple. One of them would have to be 'annoying' that was for sure. The former college student, youngest of the team, dressed in clothes that looked like they'd been pulled from a bin at a secondhand shop, none of it quite fitting him right, none of it quite matching. He was a bundle of nervous energy, all arms and legs. He reminded Becker a bit of a teenager going through a growth spurt, like he wasn't quite sure how long his legs were and tripped on his own feet. He could talk incessantly, barely pausing for breath at all, sometimes slipping into terms so complicated it sounded like another language all on its own, or he would spout out facts that were just barely relevant, or go off on a rant about topics so utterly nerdy and esoteric that nobody could follow what he was saying. Becker honestly wondered why Cutter even bothered keeping the little weirdo around. Sure Temple had a way with technology and his insight to the creatures was useful, but he was still dead weight, a nuisance to be babysat. The only admirable quality that Becker saw in the young man was his steadfast loyalty to the team and to the professor.

Which was why it'd surprised Becker so much when Temple took it upon himself to protect the clone, treating it like it was a person, insisting that they had no right to just kill it. And even when the rest of the team had been against him, Cutter included, Temple hadn't backed down. He'd dug in his heels and had even stood up to Becker himself without looking at all afraid. It seemed that the young man was just as bloody stubborn as his professor. It just didn't make sense.

Becker wondered just what Temple saw in that creature that made him so bound and determined to protect it.

* * *

><p>"I don't get it," murmured Cutter for the third time, though more to himself than to Jenny.<p>

"I don't, either," she agreed, coming over to sit on the edge of his desk, absently picking up a fossilised ammonite shell and turning it over in her hands, just to have something to do. "I mean, Connor doesn't argue with us. He just doesn't. Especially not with Lester. What's gotten into him?"

The professor started to shrug, winced at the movement of his injured shoulder, and shook his head. Some of his pale hair fell into his face, but he made no move to brush it back again. "I dunno, but it was a little unnerving. He didn't even flinch when Becker got in his face like that, and Connor told me himself once that Becker scared him." He felt as if he had fallen into some sort of strange twilight zone.

Jenny paused, chewing at her lower lip worriedly. "Is he right, Nick? About the clone, I mean?" she wondered as her warm brown gaze moved back to him. What Connor had said in the office had shaken her more than a little. She'd been called a lot of things in her career doing public relations—secretive, devious, wily, straightforward, snide, and even bitchy—but nobody had ever called her murderer before. Connor Temple was probably the most kindhearted, amicable person she had ever known, one of those rare few truly _good_ people in the world, and to hear him say he was ashamed to be her friend cut deeper than she thought it would. If it had been anyone else that said those words to her, she would have immediately gone on the defencive and snapped back at them. But _Connor…_ he made her pause and second-guess and doubt herself.

Cutter didn't answer her right away, sliding a little lower in his chair, but she could tell by the look on his face that he felt just as uneasy as she did. Connor had always agreed with him before now, and even if he didn't always give in right away, the student eventually bowed. Until now. It seemed that they had at last found the point at which he would not bow. Everybody had that point, that invisible line that would not, _could not_ be crossed, the point where they would dig in their heels and outright refuse, yet somehow, Cutter just couldn't quite imagine the soft, affable young student having that point, that invisible line. It just didn't fit the picture, like a piece that had somehow gotten into the wrong puzzle. "I dunno," he mumbled at last, reluctant to say it. "I dunno."

Jenny turned the ammonite over in her hands, tracing the ridges of the fossilised shell with her nails. "Before the bomb, did you ever talk to it, the clone?" she asked.

His head lifted in surprise, not expecting the question from her. "We didn't sit down and have a conversation, no, but there were words, why?"

"I was just wondering…. Do you think it's actually a person, Nick?"

He didn't know how to answer that. In the ARC, before the explosion, the sight of his own clone had been unnerving and disturbing and a little frightening. There had been some faint glint of resistance in the clone, though, some degree of restraint and ability to go against Helen—like how the clone had lowered the gun, if only for a second, and when it had told Cutter to save himself before setting off the explosion, giving him a chance to run. But did he think that it was a person? He wasn't sure, and he hated it. He despised the feeling of uncertainty; to him, it was like standing on a trapdoor, unable to move, knowing that at any given second, his beliefs could drop out from beneath his feet and send him plummeting. And even if he did think of the clone as a person, it wouldn't do a damn thing about that feeling of sickly unease that curled in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about it. The plain truth of it was that Cutter did not like the idea of another version of himself living, person or not. It was unnatural and unnerving.

He realised that he hadn't yet answered Jenny, and she was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I'm not sure," he said, and she sighed at the dismal answer. "But," he added, "I-I do trust Connor. I don't agree with him, but I trust him. And if he says that creature is worth saving…." He heaved a sigh of his own. "I suppose I'll just have to keep trusting him."

* * *

><p>"I have caused dissent."<p>

Connor looked up at the echo, raising his head. "No, you haven't. _They_ caused it by being a pack of right bloody tossers," he answered. He sat in the prison-cell-like room that the echo was being kept in, sitting on the floor with knees drawn up, head buried in his arms in a mirroring position of the echo himself, who sat about a metre away, still huddled down in the corner furthest from the door.

The echo frowned slightly. "Tossers?" he repeated in obvious confusion.

"Yeah, tossers. Berks. Gits," Connor replied. "However you want to say it. They were being stupid and cruel."

"Oh."

For a moment they sat in comfortable silence, neither one feeling much impulse to talk to the other, but there wasn't anything wrong with that. Connor was stilly struggling to understand how the rest of his team, the people he'd always seen as his friends, could even think about killing another person with no more care than a normal person would think about throwing away rubbish. It gave him chills in the worst way. He hated the way they'd all looked at him, like he had opened his third eye or sprouted another ear. There were times he just wanted to grab them and _shake_ some bloody sense into the whole lot.

"I am Alexander."

The soft-spoken voice was enough to snap him right out of his morbid, seething thoughts. Connor lifted his head and looked over at the echo, still sitting in the corner of the room. He'd lifted his head as well, looking over with familiar blue eyes. "What'd you say?" he asked in disbelief.

"My name. I am Alexander," he repeated quietly.

Connor felt himself smile wide, moving closer to sit nearer to the echo—_Alexander,_ he corrected mentally. "Really? That's your name now?" he asked, and the other man nodded, appearing quite proud of himself having chose his own name. Laughing softly, he moved closer and held out one hand. "Well, then, it's nice to meet you, Alex. I'm Connor."

"I heard the Other call you Temple," said Alex in confusion, tilting his head as he shook the proffered hand.

"That's my last name, mate. I'm Connor Temple. You can call me Connor. Action Man just calls me Temple 'cause he's a soldier-boy," Connor explained, amused.

Alex nodded understanding, leaning back against the wall. "Am I to be retired?" he asked in a soft voice after a few moments of silence.

This time, Connor frowned in confusion, not understanding, but then cold realisation washed over him. "They're not going to kill you," he answered firmly, and he saw some of the tension leave Alex's shoulders. _Retire. Is that what Helen called it? God, just when I think that bird can't get any worse,_ he thought. "Lester will let you live, but everyone's gonna be keeping an eye on you, make sure you aren't some kind of turncoat working for Helen," he said quietly. "I told them I'd be responsible for you."

He hadn't meant to get a reaction out of the other man, but out the corner of his eye, he saw Alex wince. "You did not have to do that. I am only an echo," he murmured quietly.

"You are a person," Connor protested. "Just because you're an echo doesn't mean that you're any less of a person than I am, and they had no right to simply decide whether or not you can live."

Alex rested his chin on his forearms, reaching up to trace the line of stitches in his face; he wondered if they would be taken out soon. They were starting to itch something fierce. He had never had anyone promise to protect him or even show any hint of affection towards him. The Mistress had never done any such thing. He'd been created to serve her, no more. Yet Connor was willing to go against the other originals, even against the Others, to keep him safe, even though he had no reason to do so. He gave another little gasp as a new emotion washed through him. It wasn't like before, when he felt an aching pain in his heart; this was a warm, contented feeling that curled just below his sternum, a feeling he had never experienced before. "Thank you," he said softly.

Connor smiled at him kindly. "You don't have to thank me." He rubbed both hands over his arms, then stood up suddenly. "C'mon," he prompted, and Alex looked up with confusion on his face. "Lester said that it's on my head anyways, so we might as well do more than just sit here. I'll show you around."

Feeling an unfamiliar smile pull at his mouth, Alex stood up and followed him.


	6. Hostility

_"It is to the credit of human nature that,  
>except where its selfishness is called into play, it loves more readily than it hates.<br>Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love…"  
><em>—Nathaniel Hawthorne, **The Scarlet Letter**

* * *

><p>Alexander felt his breath catch in his throat as he saw two of the black-clad Others coming towards him. He already knew what was going to happen. None of the originals wanted him around, except for Connor, not even the real Nick Cutter, but these Others held a particular hatred towards him. Whenever he was alone, they would pursue him doggedly with harsh words; more often than not, they would hit him as well, careful to always punch him where the bruises wouldn't show.<p>

As he turned and tried to make it towards the door, he froze, seeing two more blocking his way, similar looks of loathing on their faces. He backed away anxiously, aware that they were boxing him into a corner, unable to get away. Then, moving quick, one of the Others snapped one fist out, hitting Alexander in the jaw; the taste of blood exploded in his mouth as he staggered back into the wall. All four of them moved closer to strike out at him, and he slid down the wall, curling up as small as he could and wrapping both arms around his head. Two grabbed hold of his arms, dragging him up to his feet and pinning him against the wall, holding his arms still so he could not move to defend himself. As the hard blows fell onto him again and again, Alexander heard a voice cut through the ringing in his ears loud and clear.

* * *

><p>"What in the <em>hell<em> is going on in here?" Jenny's voice was as hard and flatly sharp as the crack of a whip, and the four soldiers hastily turned to look at the PR, still standing in the doorway; her expression was caught between shock and outrage. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, the four of them unspeaking as she waited for them to say something. Her eyes drifted to the echo, still being held up by two of the men, face bloodied, and then her shock disappeared and fury took over. "Get out of here! He's done nothing to you, leave him alone!" she half-shouted, brandishing the stack of files in her grasp like a weapon. The soldiers quickly scattered before she could take any names, releasing the echo. She considered hunting after them, but her focus was drawn back to the other man; the moment the soldiers released him, he'd slumped to the ground, falling forward onto hands and knees, head bowed. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" she asked, stepping closer to him.

He peeked at her through strands of his hair, lifting his head fractionally, then sat up, leant forward, wrapped both arms around her waist, and buried his head against her stomach. Jenny was speechless, frozen at the unexpected and intimate gesture. She didn't know what to do. Her logical mind said to push him away, but he trembled with fear and pain and pathetic relief, and she could feel him shaking against her. After a moment's hesitation, one hand came up, and, gently, she stroked the top of his head. He flinched instinctively, realised that she wasn't hurting him, and relaxed beneath her touch. His hair was warm and surprisingly soft, as nice to touch as a cat's fur. "It's okay. You're alright now," she murmured, surprised at how soft her own voice came out.

The echo lightly nuzzled against her stomach before lowering his arms and leaning away from her. He was bleeding from his nose and the corner of his mouth, but he seemed not to notice it. The scar down the side of his face looked raw in the light, the stitches only just taken out. He pushed to his feet; Jenny never remembered him being quite so tall before. "Thank you, Miss Lewis," he murmured softly, gaze cast towards the floor submissively, not ever looking at her.

As he moved to slide past her, she reached out to grasp his arm. The moment her hand touched him, he went rigid; she was quite sure he was holding his breath, too. "What's your name?" she asked, taking her hand from his arm. She'd heard Connor say that the echo had a name, though he didn't say what, and she was curious.

He exhaled slowly once she let go. "Alexander," he answered just as softly as before, then turned and walked away from her.

She watched him go, surprised, before pulling herself together and continuing on her way. When she got to her office, she set the files down, sank into her chair, and sat for a moment, trying to understand what'd just happened.

It was rather obvious that nobody in the ARC, save Connor, wanted the clone, echo, whatever, around, and the soldiers in particular seemed to hate him. She never would've thought that they'd ever go so far as to actually hurt it—him. When she'd seen the SF men pinning the echo against the wall and beating him senseless, she'd felt...protective of him, which was confusing in and of itself. Why should she care what happened to the carbon copy? And yet, when he'd hugged her out of relief like that, it made her feel...something. She wasn't sure if it was affection or what, but it surely was confusing as hell. A part of her wondered why he hadn't fought back when the SF's went after him. He surely could've put up some kind of a struggle, yet he hadn't. She wondered if it was because Helen had so forcibly integrated subservience into him or if it was because he was simply unwilling to fight. Either way...

"What are you thinking about over there?" asked Abby, startling Jenny from her reverie. The petite blond was leaning up against the doorframe of her office, looking at her with friendly blue eyes. "You look...oddly intense."

"Oh, nothing, nothing," she lied quickly, waving a hand dismissively, but then paused. "Actually...you wanna come in and shut the door a moment?" Jenny asked.

If Abby was surprised by the request, she didn't show it, stepping into the office and closing the door obligingly before taking a seat in front of Jenny's desk, leaning forward on her elbows. "What's goin' on?"

After Jenny had regaled the whole story to the younger woman, she paused slightly and chewed her lip. "I dunno why I'm being so strange about this. I really don't. I mean...I just don't get it."

Abby was quiet for a moment, mulling it over in her mind. "I dunno, either. Strange that it'd hug you, though. From what I heard, thing doesn't touch anyone unless it's on accident," she admitted, then reconsidered. "Well, an accident, or if it's Connor. That clone really likes him for some reason. Probably 'cause he's the only one ever nice to it."

"Alexander."

The blond lifted her eyebrows. "Beg pardon?"

Jenny felt a flush of heat creep up her neck. "The echo, his name is...Alexander," she mumbled out.

Abby gave her a strange, unreadable look.

* * *

><p>"What of the others?"<p>

Connor glanced up from the book in front of him to see that Alex had come to sit on the floor near the table; no matter how many times he reminded the other man that he was allowed to sit on furniture, it seemed that Alex simply preferred sitting on the floor. "What others?" he asked, tucking a bookmark to hold his place. As he sat up, he saw what looked like a fresh bruise and a cut on his lip, no more than a few hours old, and anger flared up in his chest. "And what happened to your face?" he demanded, instantly defencive.

The echo waved a dismissive hand. "I am not hurt. The other echoes, the ones that the Mistress made of the other originals. What will become of them?" he asked, looking up at Connor. "She created them as part of her plan to enter the ARC, but seeing as how that is now folly, what will become of them?" He swallowed hard. "Do you think she will have retired them, seeing as how they do not serve a purpose?"

_Would Helen kill someone just because they're of no use to her? Absolutely, without chequing at the gate,_ Connor thought, but he wouldn't dare say it aloud, especially considering the fearful look that Alex was giving him. Setting his book on the table, he slid off his chair to sit beside the other man, feeing more comfortable now that they were on the same level. "I dunno, mate. I really don't," he admitted, only half-lying yet still feeling guilty for it. He glanced over through the corner of his eyes. "Why?"

Alex sighed and absently picked at the hem of his sleeve. "After my creation in the Institute, when I still wore the Collar, Mistress kept us together, separate from the Others," he admitted quietly. _The Others,_ Connor had come to understand, was what he called the eerie Cleaner echoes, and also what he called any soldier in uniform, which made an odd sort of sense. "It was so we would get used to the sight and sound of each other, so we would be better adjusted for meeting the originals in the ARC. They are...familiar...to me. If they were retired...it causes a sensation of pain, here." Alex lightly rested one hand on his chest.

"They're your friends," Connor murmured softly. "You miss them, and you're worried about what might happen to them. That feeling, there, that's what missing someone feels like, and being worried, too."

The other man nodded again. He had never been able to feel much of anything before, and now that he did, he found that he often didn't know how to describe them, put them into cohesive words. Connor did, though, which was another reason that Alexander would always be grateful for the younger man. "I do not want them to die," he admitted, voice soft.

Connor rested a comforting hand against his shoulder. "M'sorry. Maybe if we ever find Helen, we'll get her to take us back to the Institute to find your friends," he said gently.

A small frown pulled at his face as he glanced over at Connor. "Why would you need the Mistress? I know where it is."


	7. Institute

_"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  
>Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."<em>  
>—Martin Luther King, Jr.<p>

* * *

><p>"You've got to be kidding me, Connor. It's one thing for you to adopt that damned thing, but now you're suggesting that we make an incursion through the future anomaly just to rescue its friends?" asked Cutter as he stared up at the errant young student, not quite able to believe what he'd just heard.<p>

"His name is Alexander, and yes." Connor could tell just by the look on the professor's face that he was going to be shot down, so he went on. "But not just for that," he added; Cutter raised his eyebrows in silent query. "This...Institute place is where Helen is making the Cleaners, right? It's where she got the artefact from, and it's where the Predators were created. I'm not saying that Helen's telling the truth, because she probably wasn't, but isn't it possible that there could be something worth knowing in the Institute? Maybe some kind of explanation? For all we know, maybe the Institute is where the artefact came from in the first place. And if not, then, hell, we can just let Becker run over it with a tank so Helen can't make any more echoes."

Cutter leant back in his chair, silent for a moment as he mulled it over in his head. As he contemplated the boy's words, he couldn't help but to think about the other clones, echoes, whatever they were. His own echo—no matter how he tried, he couldn't ever see it as 'Alexander'—had apparently learnt that Cutter himself had no desire to be anywhere near it and stayed far away from him, a fact he was grateful for. It'd said that Helen had made clones of all of them, including Stephen. The idea of seeing a living, breathing carbon copy of the man Cutter'd seen die sent chills down his backbone in the worst way. But still, Connor had a valid point. This Institute could give them valuable information, insights that could probably push along their own research by months. "Alright," he said, sitting forward in his chair. "I...will talk to Lester about it. That's it. If he says it's alright, we'll go. If not, that's it," he said firmly. Had it been any other situation, he'd have gone no matter what Lester said, but this time, he was quite willing to agree. Part of it was also his own cowardice. If Lester said no, then Connor wouldn't have any grounds to be pissed at Cutter for it. It wasn't his decision.

But still, the young man gave him a smile. "Thank you, Professor," he said.

* * *

><p>"I hate you," muttered Abby in a low voice. "I really hate you."<p>

Cutter didn't bother trying to argue, because at the moment, he was starting to hate himself as well. He made sure that his gun was loaded and sighed quietly. "Yeah, I know."

All around them, a team of SFs were kitting up to head through the anomaly that lead to the future, its fractured light winking and glittering at them serenely. Much to Cutter's absolute shock, Lester had actually agreed to their brief incursion to the futurisic world to find the Institute, and he'd still agreed even after the professor's own vehement protests. Cutter had been sorely tempted to lie and tell Connor the bureaucrat had turned him down flat, but it was no use. Somehow, lying to the young man just seemed wrong. Connor was standing beside the echo, speaking in low, excited tones; Cutter wondered how much trouble he'd be in if his gun 'accidentally misfired' and hit the carbon copy.

"Let's get this done with, shall we?" asked Becker, turning to look at them. "You lot ready to go?" he asked, and got affirming nods of agreement. "Good. Oi! Clone, up front where I can see you."

The echo stood up and walked to the front of the group without argument, though it skirted around Becker as if he was somehow contagious. Abby stepped forward with hands on her hips. "Don't this thing lead to the post-apocalypse world where the Future Predators are from?" she asked pointedly, eyeing it up coldly.

"It does," replied the echo calmly. "But I know exactly where we are going and the fastest way to get there. Once we are inside the Institute, the Predators cannot cross the perimetre; it emits a noise inaudible to people but causes the Predators great pain, so they do not go near it. We will be safe."

"Still, how do we know you're not leading us into a trap?" Abby challenged.

At this, the echo turned fully to face her, standing up straight so it was head and shoulders taller than her slight frame; Cutter had never really noticed he was _that_ much taller than her until seeing that. The carbon copy's face was still blank, carefully impassive, but somehow, that made it even worse. "I am an echo. I was made not to feel emotion. I was made to be used, and Mistress used me to kill. If I truly wanted to kill you, I would do so, and I could do it in such a way that nobody would ever suspect anything other than an unfortunate accident. I would not waste time luring you into a trap that could very well result in my own death. Right now, you are not my concern. The other echoes Mistress created are my concern. I would see them safe, and for the moment, you are the only way I can assure their safety."

Abby had edged back an uncertain step, put off by the cool, impassive way the echo spoke and the expressionless face it wore when talking, the calm way it spoke of killing them. "Is that all we are, then? Means to an end?" she asked quietly.

It tilted its head to the side, like a puzzled bird. "You have never given me any reason to consider you more than such," it replied. "And if you do require further reassurance that this is no trap, consider that Miss Lewis and Connor are here. Even if your demise would not affect me, theirs would. Now, shall we go?"

* * *

><p>The other side of the anomaly was no so different than the place they had just left. It was a dim, musty warehouse, entirely empty. If not for the lack of gear and soldiers, they might've just stepped out into the very same building. Connor stood beside Alexander as the others made their way through; the other man's words still rang in his head. It was a little creepy, to think that Helen had really only made Alex as a kind of tool to kill people, and that he could kill any one of them and make it look like a natural accident. But at the same time, Abby had almost been asking for it, trying to provoke some response out of him, and well, she'd gotten it. Maybe not the response she anticipated, but a response nonetheless. "You meant it, didn't you?" he asked in soft undertones. "What you said back there?"<p>

Alex nodded. "Yes. I...cannot lie. I do not know how."

"Why Jenny?"

"She protected me from the Others. She asked me my name." Once everyone had crossed to the other side of the anomaly, Alex turned and walked towards the door of the warehouse, shoving it open with a screech of rusted metal against rusted metal; a wash of warm air blew from outside, bringing with it the scent of dirt and grass. It was dark outside, the middle of the night. "This way."

They walked out right into the middle of a city, except one that looked as if it hadn't been populated for years. Grass sprouted up through cracks in the pavement, the shops were all overgrown, and most of the roads had given way to dirt and more scruffy grass. Alex stood for a moment, looking around, then started walking down the sidewalk, gesturing for them all to follow. There was no other sign of life at all, just a peaceful sort of silence that could never be found in the heart of a living city. Once they reached the kerb, Alex turned and pointed. "There is the Institute."

_Bloody. Buggering. Hell._ The Institute took up half a city block, towering buildings that seemed made entirely out of steel and glass, glittering even in the darkness of night, reflecting the moonlight. Only a few of its windows were broken, and it still looked fairly new. A sign in front of the largest centre building read _Osiris Dynamic Institute_ in large silvery letters that reflected the light of the moon overhead. Beside it was an insignia of a jagged lightning flash with three stars. The same symbol, Connor realised with a jolt, that Alex had tattooed on the back of his neck, the Mark he spoke of.

"So that's where Helen got the clones from?" Cutter murmured quietly.

"Yes. Since the Predators cannot get inside, Mistress often stays there. The technology is still operational, if one knows how to use it properly," Alex replied. "It is where she keeps all her echoes until we are capable of functioning."

Quietly, they all made their way down the empty road towards the Institute. Alex opened the doors and led them all inside. The interior was mostly untouched as well, though still a little worn from lack of upkeep for years. "The labs where Mistress made the echoes are this way," he instructed, leading them down another hallway.

As they made their way further into the complex, twisting passages of the Institute, suddenly Becker lifted his rifle and barked, "Don't move!" in a sharp, authoritive voice. They all instantly froze, whirling around with guns drawn; standing at the end of the hallway, staring at them, was the form of one of the echoes. Dressed entirely in black, it was a stark contrast to the pale floor and white walls. "Stay right there, don't move," the captain ordered.

As they approached, the features of the echo became clear—it was Jenny. Her dark hair was braided back, and she didn't wear any makeup, just standing there in black. Around her pale throat was the collar that Alex had told them all about; it was an industrial thing, made of metal and leather, shining dully.

"She will not harm you," said Alex, staring at the rifle with anxious fear, and he moved to stand between the echo and Becker, stubbornly staying there until the captain lowered his weapon. Relaxing slightly, he turned and walked forward to stand in front of her.

She tilted her head to the side, a small frown appearing on her lips. "This side is perfect," she said, lifting one hand to touch his cheek. "This side is flawed." Her fingers traced over the scar. "Why?"

"I was damaged," he replied, and she lowered her hand from his cheek. "Where is the Mistress?"

"She has gone. The Others went with her. We are all that is left," the echo said, then turned her head to look at the rest of the team, standing there watching the interaction. "They are the originals. Why are they here?"

"They are here to keep us safe," he answered. "Where are the others? I must find them."

She turned and walked down the hall; Alex followed after her. The rest of the team followed without a word, watching closely. Jenny looked slightly pale, seeing her own echo in the flesh. The echo led them through the maze-like complex without ever seeming to pause or lose her way, leading them up to a door. She typed a code on the keypad, and the door opened with a hiss of pressurised air. The door looked as though it weighed more than a man, yet she pulled it open with one hand. On the other side of the door was a large laboratory, though it looked in shambles, as if a lot of people had left very quickly. There was a small room off to the side, probably meant to be an office, but instead of a desk, there were several echoes, sleeping on the floor. "Wake up. The originals are here," said the Jenny-echo, and the others began to stir, sitting up.

"Right, let's get out of here. We'll take them back to the ARC, and—"

"No!" said the echoes all at once. Alex stood up. "The Collars are wired into the complex perimetre sensors. If they step beyond the boundaries of the complex, it will kill them," he said. "It is designed so that we do not leave."

Connor stepped forward immediately. "Well, get me to a computer with mainframe access, and I'll find a way to shut it down," he said.

"You do that, then," Cutter said, then looked at his echo. "Did Helen ever say anything about the artefact? Any research about it?"

"Yes. I can show you."

As they made their way down the empty, deserted halls, Cutter began to wonder if perhaps this wasn't such a terrible idea after all.


	8. Strays

Becker stood in front of the CCTV monitors, checking the different video feeds. The past several days had gone on without event. There'd only been one anomaly the past week, and all that'd come out was a flock of tiny, quite harmless Mussasaurus, which were barely the size of a large dog and quite easy to herd back to their own time. Which meant he was, in a word, bored. A lot of people said it was impossible to be bored working security, but when his security detail entailed chasing after the scientists who chased after dinosaurs, it was quite easy to get bored if there was a lull in creature incursions. But it also gave him time to look over security in the ARC, adjust things where they needed adjusting. He pressed the keypad, switching feeds. He pressed it again, watched for a moment, pressed it again…and paused.

The CCTV feed now on the main screen showed the room where they'd been keeping the echoes. They were…unnerving, their blank expressions and flat voices and unblinking stares. They were like weird little automatons or something else strange and unusual. There was an echo of everyone on the team—Connor, Abby, Jenny, Stephen, Cutter, even himself, which was disturbing on multiple levels. He wished that they'd gotten rid of the damn things, but Connor had somehow talked Lester into keeping them around, making some sort of argument like 'if they're here, then they're not with Helen' or some other shite.

They weren't difficult in any way, of course. They were silent unless spoken to first. They didn't go anywhere they were told not to go. They obeyed orders without question. Unless actively engaged, they would just sit in the room. Connor had provided them with several books and DVDs, and they would spend time reading and watching the telly. They were just…creepy.

Right now, though, they were sitting on the floor around the telly, watching with rapt attention, hands folded in their laps, cross-legged like schoolchildren. Becker shook his head. _Adopting a pack of damn strays. What's next? Inviting Helen Cutter over to tea?_

* * *

><p>Alexander sat with his friends in front of the small telly Connor had brought to them along with several films and books. The books were difficult to understand—Mistress did not allow them to read, so their vocabulary was underdeveloped—but the films were amusing. This one in particular was a source of amusement; he did not understand why it was named after an insect, but the prospect of space cowboys and their use of Mandarin expletives was entertaining.<p>

The echo of Jenny sat his elbow, watching the screen. They'd all been given new clothes, and Connor had been kind and wise enough to bring ones that were not just black and fit properly. She wore a long dress of a light bluish colour stitched with tiny silvery stars that gleamed subtly when she moved, ribbon straps crisscrossing over her back. "Have you decided a name?" he asked softly.

She glanced over at him curiously. "What?"

"I am Alexander now. I have my own name, one that does not belong to the original. It is…freeing, to be myself instead of being simply the echo of an original," he replied. "It would be good for you to have your own name. All of you."

She tilted her head curiously. "Oh. It would be nice to have a name. I will consider it. Alexander," she replied, murmuring his name very quietly, as if as an afterthought.

For some reason he could not explain, a warm emotion curled under his collarbone to hear her speak his name so gently. A curious response. He would have to ask Connor about it.

* * *

><p>"Connor, I want to talk to you."<p>

Abby saw the line of his back go tense for a moment, shoulders rigid, but then he sat up and turned to look at her. "About what?" he asked, his voice carefully guarded.

She wondered when he'd become so closed off from her. It used to be that she could just look at him and know exactly how he was feeling and what he was thinking; he'd been so open, easy to read, but now something had fallen between them, between him and everyone else, it seemed. Even Cutter had noticed there was a distance between the young man and the rest of the team. Walking further into the office that he'd turned into his own workroom, carefully skirting the tables full of electronic bits and bobs she had no name for, she came to stand on the opposite side of the table he sat at, facing him, though she didn't sit down. He didn't offer her a chair, either, which was only further proof that something had changed. "About the clones."

"Echoes," he corrected firmly. "They're called echoes."

_"Whatever_ they are," she sighed in exasperation, "I want to talk to you about them."

His dark eyes flitted up to hers for a moment, then returned back to whatever he was working on. "Then talk," he murmured back, picking up the soldering iron and going to work on the brightly-coloured wires inside the little device.

"Why do you want to protect them so badly, huh? What is it about them that makes you suddenly decide to be the hero?" she demanded, finally asking the question that'd been itching at her since they first found the clone, echo, whatever the hell it was, in the ruins of the ARC and Connor had stood up to protect the damned thing even after it'd been the one to set off the bomb. No matter how she looked at it, she just didn't _understand_ why he was so bound and determined to let them live, to keep them safe. Abby herself would've felt a whole lot better if they ended up in a ditch somewhere, or tossed through an anomaly. Anywhere but _here_, with them. But no. For this, of all things, Connor finally decided to grow a backbone.

"If I have to explain it to you, Abby, then you don't see it," he replied in that same quiet, level tone of voice that, for some reason, grated on her nerves. He wasn't even bloody _looking_ at her.

"Yeah, well, I guess I don't see it, so you'd better start explaining," she snapped back, crossing both arms over her chest. She didn't know why she was getting mad at him, but something about the way he was acting was just...ugh, nails on a sodding chalkboard.

He glanced up at her for a second through his lashes, then sighed heavily, as if he was being forced to explain something exceedingly simple. It made her bristle indignantly. "Because they are people."

_"What?_ That's it?" she demanded incredulously. "That's all you're going to say?"

"Yes, Abby, because that is all the more reason I need," he replied, a heated edge to his voice now. "They're not pieces of furniture or bits of rubbish that you can just chuck aside because they're inconvenient. They are people, living, breathing human beings, and if nobody else is going to acknowledge that fact, then _I will._ You and Lester and everyone else wanted to just go ahead and off them because they weren't of use to you. You didn't even stop to think, for even one second, that they have the right to live as much as anyone else in this damned place does. They're _people,_ Abby. They think and feel just like me and you do. Cut them and they'll bleed, same as anyone. I might be the only one who thinks that, but maybe that means I'm the only one acting like a human being. Nobody has ever shown those echoes a bit of affection in their lives. Never a word of comfort or friendship. Nothing, not even from the woman that they would've died to protect. I know what that feels like, more than any of you probably do, I know what that feels like, and I refuse to let you lot do the same thing to the echoes." Connor shoved to his feet then, so fast that his chair nearly fell over, sliding backwards with a harsh screech of metal on tile. Both hands braced on the desk, he leant forward so his face was close to Abby's, so near that she could see the strange glints of gold in his dark eyes. "Helen didn't care if they lived or died. A raptor could've showed up and eaten them and she wouldn't have blinked twice at it. And, as far as I've seen, you are no better than she is," he spat in a low, venomous hiss.

Abby recoiled as if he'd slapped her, stung. He'd never said anything so...cold before, and it hurt more than she would've ever expected it. "Connor..." she tried to say; she didn't know what she'd said to stir this level of animosity, but now she wished she'd never said anything about it at all.

"Get out," he spat.

"Connor, I—"

"Out!"

Wordlessly, she hurried out of the office.

* * *

><p>Jenny turned the corner and nearly knocked Abby over, having not seen the other woman approaching from the opposite direction. "Oh, I'm sorry, Abby," she apologised hastily. "I didn't even see you—hey, what's the matter?" she asked, noticing for the first time that Abby looked rather upset. Her young face had a forlorn expression, like a puppy that'd just been kicked, and she was missing that usual confident air that always made her seem taller than she really was. She looked miserable, really.<p>

"Huh? Oh, I'm...it's nothing. Nothing," Abby mumbled back. A blatant lie, but before Jenny could even open her mouth to ask, the blond slipped past her and hastened away down the hallway.

_Okay, that wasn't strange at all. Wonder what's going on with her,_ she thought concernedly, shaking her head. As she continued on down the hallway, she suddenly wondered what the echoes were doing. The random thought appeared out of nowhere, for no apparent reason at all. She didn't much think about the echoes at all, not even since they'd rescued the others from the Institute. But still, despite the fact, she found herself turning towards the room where they stayed.

The door was locked from the outside, a fact that bothered her somehow. Either way, she pulled open the door and stepped inside.

Most of the echoes were asleep, lying on the floor—nobody knew why, but they didn't even sleep in the cots. They actually seemed to like the floor better. It was strange, but they weren't exactly shining examples of normality, anyways. The only ones awake were Alexander and Jenny's own echo, sitting on the floor beside him in a pale blue dress. When the door opened, the echo looked up at her, went pale, and slid away from Jenny without taking her eyes from her. Confused, Alex looked up as well. "Miss Lewis," he said quietly. "What are you doing in here?" As he stood to his feet, he moved subtly to the side, standing between Jenny and her echo, protectively.

"I just wanted to see what you were doing," she answered, though even as she said the words she knew how very much a lie it sounded, even though it really was the truth.

Alex noticed it too, frowning slightly at her. "Why?"

She gave a small shrug, feeling terribly awkward now. God, when had this ever been a good idea? "I really don't know," she admitted, then glanced at the other sleeping forms on the floor. "How have they been? I can't imagine any of this hasn't been stressful."

"They're quite happy," Alex replied, making her raise her eyebrows in surprise. "This place is better than the Institute. There are more people. The originals still do not like us, but Connor is always kind. He brings us things." He made a small gesture towards the books that were lovingly arranged on the unoccupied cot, right beside the DVDs.

Jenny nodded slowly. "Good, that's...good." She glanced around Alex to where her own echo was still sitting on the floor, back to the wall, looking back up at her with fear clear in her eyes. It was strange, seeing her face as others saw it, not reversed in a reflection, without any makeup. "Hello," she said quietly. "I-I'm Jenny. You don't have to be frightened. I won't hurt you. Do you have a name?" she asked.

The echo nodded slowly, the fear in her eyes changing to a kind of curiosity. "I am Sedna."

"It's nice to meet you, Sedna." Jenny reached up and nervously brushed a stray bit of hair back behind her ears. "Right, well, I'm just going to...go. Goodbye," she mumbled, hastily backing out of the room and closing the door. _Stupid. That was so...stupid._

* * *

><p>Once the original had gone, Sedna rose to her feet slowly, coming to stand beside Alexander. "She is not like the other ones," she noted quietly.<p>

Alexander shook his head. "No. She is like Connor, though she tries to appear harder than she truly is."

"How very strange these originals are."

"The strangest," he agreed.


	9. Familiarity

Helen scowled down at the screen in front of her with irritation, both hands braced on the edges of the counter. No matter how cold her expression was, the information on the brightly-lit display didn't change. She had left the echoes of the ARC team here in the Institute whilst she took the soldiers to the safehouse she had procured in another time, one not populated by the dangerous Future Predators. When she came back to retrieve them, however, they were gone. It simply wasn't possible.

She'd built these particular echoes very carefully, with much more precision than she had made the soldiers. They had the basic knowledge of the original they were crafted after, though entirely subliminal; they didn't know they knew it unless asked. It was just enough so they could pass for the real version. They didn't have much of anything as far as personality went, but that didn't matter. They were only needed for a short time, just long enough so she could infiltrate the ARC and get what she needed. But just like any echo, they didn't think for themselves. They followed orders, no more than that. Which meant they couldn't have simply wandered off of their own volition. And even if, by some sort of miracle, they had, they couldn't have left the Institute without being killed by the Collars. So where in the hell were they?

"Mistress."

She looked up from the screen to see one of her Cleaner soldiers standing there, his large, squarish face entirely impassive, blank of all emotion. "What did you find?"

He held out one arm. Clasped in his enormous gloved fist was one of the echoes' Collar, severed clean and cold to the touch. Picking it up, she turned to read off the numbers etched into the metal tag. 0102-2223-7508. Stephen's echo. That just tore it, then. Someone had come to the Institute and taken the echoes, had somehow been able to shut off the Collars and remove them. But who? Nobody knew about the Institute except for herself and her echoes. Nobody cared whether or not the echoes lived or died, so who would even bother coming to retrieve them? It didn't make any bloody sense.

Lightly rubbing her thumb across the metal tag, feeling the engraved numbers against her finger, Helen cursed under her breath. She didn't know who had taken her echoes, but she was for damned sure going to find out. And then whoever responsible for this was going to pay.

* * *

><p>Alexander sat cross-legged on the floor behind Sedna, taking up her hair in both hands. Her hair had become quite tangled and knotted overnight—he'd heard her crying out in her sleep and believed that she had been tossing and turning in her sleep from a nightmare. Taking her hair in one hand, he used the fingers of the other hand to pick out the worst of the knots, beginning at the bottom and working his way up until he deemed it safe enough to use the brush without pulling her hair out by the roots. Sedna remained still the entire time, her eyes slowly drifting closed; she liked it when someone else brushed her hair for her. It was very soothing. He liked doing it too. The repetitive motions soothed his nerves as well as herown, and she had such lovely hair, long and dark and soft, the colour of polished mahogany wood and with a tendency to curl, soft ringlets springing out from beneath his fingers whenever he passed his hand over them. Taking up the comb again, he slowly pulled the brush through each curl of hair so that each one shone and bounced independently of the others. She relaxed back into his gentle touch like a great cat, tilting her head back so he could better reach.<p>

Gathering her hair in both hands, Alexander began twining the long strands together the way Miss Lewis had shown him. Sedna paused, leaning her head away from him. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"It is called braiding. Miss Lewis showed me how to. It is a way of tying back one's hair when it is as long as yours. It keeps it out of the way and prevents it from tangling," he replied. He had seen several women on the staff with hair like that, and he had asked her about it. She had shown him how to braid.

"Oh."

"Would you like me to stop?"

Sedna leant back into his touch, settling herself back into her earlier position. "No. Continue," she invited.

* * *

><p>"Oh, look at that. The freaks are doing each other's hair. Very butch," Becker muttered disdainfully, shaking his head as he watched the CCTV.<p>

Connor gave him a dirty look. "Shut up. They're not freaks, and they're not…like that," he replied. He didn't know how to explain it, but the echoes didn't seem to think about their own image. They didn't care about how they looked or what other people thought of them. He wasn't sure if they simply didn't care or if they just didn't _know,_ but they failed to understand the normal social roles. They were…simple. Not stupid, just uncomplicated, not restrained by the social rules and restrictions that became ingrained in the minds of normal people over the course of their lives. The echoes lacked the filter to prevent themselves from saying what theythought or felt, no matter how uncomfortable it made other people. Most men would consider it emasculating, braiding a woman's hair for her, but Alex didn't see it. "Look, Warden, Action Man, I'm going to take Alex out with me," Connor said frostily, feeling a slight stab of vindictive pleasure when he saw the captain's jaw tighten at the moniker. He called Becker the warden because the captain had taken it upon himself to be the echoes watchdog, ready to tear any one of them to bits if they put a toe out of line.

Becker gritted his teeth. "Why?" he demanded.

"Because he hasn't left that room in six days. I think that seeing the sun and actual grass might be good for him," Connor answered, arms folded across his chest. He tried to take the echoes out of the ARC every now and again, even though he could only take them one at a time. Brushing past the captain, he went to the echoes' room and pulled it open. All of the echoes looked up at him, expressions of welcome on their faces. Sometimes it was so refreshing to see them, to see people that didn't expect anything of him, that didn't want anything from him, that simply wanted to be around him because they liked him. "Hey, Alex," he greeted lightly. "C'mon, mate. Field trip."

* * *

><p>"How's it been lately, Alex? With the others?" Connor asked as they walked down the sidewalk.<p>

Alexander was looking around, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. There was a look of relaxation on his face that was rarely there, a kind of joy. He truly did enjoy the simple things, like simply walking through the city on a nice day out. Mistress never let them outside, and they couldn't leave the ARC without an escort, so the days where he was allowed to walk around. It was warm and pleasant out, and a light breeze ruffled his hair. "They are very happy. The films and books you leave us are very entertaining. Usually I read one to the others when we lay down to sleep at night," he replied. A man on a bicycle went speeding by, and he paused for a moment to watch. "We have our own names now, all of us. We are not photocopies."

Connor nodded agreement. That was the one and only chink in the echoes' armour, their only real insecurity. They did not want to be thought of as nothing more than clones, lowly, inferior copies of the originals—which is what Helen had told them all from the time of their own creation. "You're not. What are their names, then?"

"Miss Lewis's is Sedna. Maitland is Lily. Becker is Owen. Yours is Toby. Hart is Hunter," the taller man answered as they walked.

A small laugh escaped his lips at the thought of Stephen's echo being named Hunter. _Looks like the title of Mighty Hunter didn't die with you, mate,_ he thought wryly, feeling that little twinge in his chest like he did whenever he thought of his lost friend.

"What are they _doing?"_ asked Alex suddenly, his voice sounding amazed and confused.

Connor glanced round to see the echo had stopped walking, staring into the park across the street with curiosity. He returned to the man's side. "Who?" he asked, confused; there were a dozen people in the park.

Alex pointed. "There, the adolescents on the bench."

He followed the pointing finger to see two teenagers sitting on a park bench in the shade, absorbed in snogging the living daylights out of each other. A snort of laughter escaped him. "Well, what's it look like they're doing?" he asked, glancing back at Alex.

The taller man frowned slightly as he looked down at Connor. "I do not know. That is why I am asking."

Connor nearly laughed, but then he saw there was no trace of humour in Alexander's eyes, not even the slightest hint of a smile on his lips. That kind of serious curiosity was too genuine, too solemn to be faked. _Oh…damn._ "Uhm, well…they're, uhm…I-I'll explain it to you later," he mumbled, grasping Alex by the arm and pulling him along. _And that will certainly be an interesting talk,_ he thought to himself.


End file.
